California salmon fishermen see improved, though not stellar, 2012 season

It didn't live up to eye-popping preseason forecasts, but the 2012 salmon season represented a marked improvement for embattled California fishermen.

With the season ending in two weeks, the Pacific Fishery Management Council released a preliminary estimate Saturday of this year's catch of Chinook salmon, whose population plummeted so far just a few years ago that the 2008 and 2009 commercial seasons were canceled to protect the species.

Commercial fishermen hauled in 172,914 king salmon through Aug. 31 statewide, about two and a half times as many as they caught in 2011, while recreational fishermen brought in 111,196, up from 49,020 last year.

For commercial trollers, the haul isn't nearly as good as it was in the 1980s and 1990s -- before pollution, loss of habitat and Central Valley agriculture's thirst for water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta began to take a severe toll on the Chinook. Still, the take is more robust than it's been since 2005, when nearly 341,000 fish were caught.

James Burton, who fishes aboard the Aini-K out of Pillar Point Harbor north of Half Moon Bay, caught three dozen 15-pound salmon last week in as many hours in Tomales Bay north of the Golden Gate. Commercial fishermen historically have considered a good day of fishing to be 100 salmon or more.

Burton rated the 2012 season as fair, saying, "It's better than last season, that's for sure."

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Before this year's season began May 1, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which regulates the salmon fisheries in Washington, Oregon and California, had estimated there were about 2.5 million adult fall-run Chinook in the ocean from the Klamath and Sacramento rivers, California's prime spawning grounds. It was the highest forecast by far since the estimates were first produced in 1985, but it didn't translate into a fishing bonanza.

Jim Anderson, captain of the Allaine out of Pillar Point Harbor, said he found pockets of good fishing -- near Bodega Bay, for instance -- but the salmon weren't widely distributed, as in the past.

"There's not a large biomass of fish where the whole fleet has gotten 100 fish a day," said Anderson, adding that the local catch may have been hampered by a price dispute around the Fourth of July and poor weather early in the season, which concludes Sept. 30.

Roger Thomas, president of the Golden Gate Fishermen's Association, a group that includes roughly 50 Bay Area charter boats that carry recreational anglers, had a brighter take.

"We had sensational fishing the latter part of June, all of July and into August," said Thomas, captain of the Salty Lady out of Sausalito. His customers have been averaging about one fish a person per trip.

Both Thomas and Anderson were heartened by the high number of juvenile salmon in the ocean that were too small to catch, something fishermen witnessed last season as well.

Said Thomas: "We had a lot of shakers, what we call undersized fish that we can't keep, which bodes very well for next year."